Liminal
by etraytin
Summary: In a two-term presidency, Inauguration Day is the end of the beginning and a chance to start fresh. In the moment between the old and the new, maybe there's a chance for something that can't be had at any other time. Also, Charlie loves Zoey and must have her back.


Author's Note: Hi everybody! Everything is just getting busier and busier in the run-up to Christmas, so I hope you're enjoying these shorter fics; you're likely to see more of them! This one is from a prompt I just got from Anonymous, asking "i would love to read your take on the car ride after the snowball scene in inauguration part 2 if you feel like writing it." Now as far as I'm concerned, the absolute last word in fanfic on this scene is Marguerite and Ryo Sen's "Solecism" (you can find it on Fanfiction dot net), and if you haven't read it yet, absolutely do so. But here's a little shift in perspective on what might have happened in that very crowded cab.

…...

Charlie wasn't drunk at all after the first of the inaugural balls. Well, he might have been a little drunk. Moderately drunk, even, but only for the very best of reasons. He was wearing a tux, for crying out loud, his own purchased tux, fitted to his very own body, one that had cost a great deal of money and was part of the reason he hadn't upgraded his TV to better suit his DVD player, and still Zoey only had eyes for her French boyfriend. Jean-Pierre-Claude-Luis-Asshole-de-Comte-de-Asshole-Again. Charlie would defy anyone in the world to look at the woman they loved throwing herself at some inbred, over-preened, soft-handed, weak-chinned pretty boy of a French nobleman and not toss back a few glasses of champagne in the most vindictive possible manner. He didn't drink enough to make him stupid, he'd never do that while working for the President, but he did have enough that Josh's plan to go collect Donna from her apartment had seemed like a good idea. Maybe he was a little bit drunker than he thought.

The first thing Charlie would've pointed out, if he'd been a little more sober, was that they probably needed a second cab if all five of them wanted to go pick up a sixth person. The cab driver was understandably reluctant even on the trip out, but Josh slipped him some extra up front that quieted him down, even as Toby and Will both squeezed into the front seat with him. Josh sat in the middle of the backseat, the better to lay out his master plan. It didn't take long, since the plan consisted mostly of him being the good cop while everyone else was the bad cop, and somehow that would allow him to convince Donna to come to the party. It didn't seem like a fantastic idea to Charlie, who was pretty sure Donna didn't need that many bad cops when she was already beating herself up for making a bad call, but this was Josh's thing.

He let his mind drift to thoughts of Zoey, and how great it would be when she finally realized she was dating a man with no chin. She'd come running back, but Charlie would play it just a little cool, not show too much pain, just let her know he'd felt it when she left. Not for too long though, because he loved Zoey and wanted her to be happy. And if it happened tonight, when he was in his tux and she was wearing that amazing dress he'd only glimpsed earlier, well, that would be even better. He was pretty deep into visualizing the way they'd kiss out on a candlelit balcony while the Comte de Asshole looked on with bitter jealousy from the sidelines when they actually arrived at Donna's place.

Charlie knew where Donna lived because she'd thrown a Thanksgiving party last year for all the assistants and bullied him into attending, but it only now occurred to him to wonder how Josh knew where she lived. Not only where she lived but apparently which window was hers, since he began attempting, in a truly pathetic fashion, to get a snowball up there. Caught up in the moment and certain that if Zoey were present, she'd appreciate his throwing arm, Charlie joined in the snowball efforts, easily landing a well-packed missile against the window. His second missile very narrowly missed Donna's head, but he'd just let somebody else take the credit for that. Josh and Donna engaged in a brief interfloor yelling match only a little louder than many of their West Wing interactions, but finally she deigned to come down and talk to her increasingly agitated boss.

The instant Donna appeared, Josh was all over her with his coat, a move that made Charlie rethink his opinion on wearing one himself. If he ran into Zoey and she was cold, he wouldn't have a coat to give her. Also, he personally was extremely fucking cold from standing in the snowy street in the middle of January with nothing but his tux. Luckily Toby was there to hurry things along, and Josh must have brought his A-game for female persuasion, because it only took a couple of minutes before Donna was taking his arm and coming back to the taxi with him. Charlie tried to explain his plan for winning Zoey back to Donna, but some of the champagne was starting to wear off and it was a lot easier to see the hurdles still standing in his way. The second cab option also started to seem a lot more rational.

Charlie tried to reclaim his previous seat in the cab, only to be nudged to the center by Josh, who apparently was done with his master strategist role. Charlie would've protested, except the only other seating solutions would've involved Josh, with Donna on his lap, sitting next to a senior reporter from the paper of record for the entire car ride. That seemed like a mistake, even if Danny was generally a pretty cool guy. So Danny crammed himself up against the driver's-side door, Charlie sat in the middle, and Josh and Donna say behind Toby, who looked as though he would sooner eat a live lobster than turn around and see what was happening behind him. The cab driver seemed extremely dubious about this arrangement, but at least it wasn't a long trip. Josh was probably going to be on the hook for a pretty big tip, though.

The cab was quiet for the first minute, then Danny and Will started talking about the speech again. Danny was mainly using it as an opportunity to tease Toby about the occasional verbal flight of fancy that the speechwriter engaged in even with Sam and all his flowery language off to California. Toby responded in grunts and monosyllables, plus the occasional threat, but his heart wasn't in it. The speech had just been too damn good for anybody to poke holes in it, though the news networks and Republicans would certainly spend the next little while trying.

Josh and Donna weren't talking much at all, which seemed more than a little unusual to Charlie. He glanced over and saw Donna was leaning back, part against Josh's chest and part against the side door, the only way she could fit without brushing the ceiling. Josh had one arm around her waist as though to make up for the lack of a seatbelt. They weren't talking but they were looking at each other, the kind of looks that conveyed a lot without saying anything at all. She smiled a little, just a tiny quirk of berry-painted lips, and he grinned and looked down, almost bashful. Her hand came up to smooth down his hair, disordered by wind and snowball-throwing, and adjust his tie, which seemed fine already. He raised his free hand and touched her cheek, brushing a few strands of blonde hair behind her ear. Charlie looked away.

There was still a chance for him to win Zoey back, and Charlie was determined to come up with a plan, a good, smart plan that would do the job. He'd lost Zoey through his own fear and all the tumultuous emotions after the shooting at Rosslyn, but that didn't have to be the end of the story. It couldn't be the end of the story, because Charlie didn't think he could stand another four years of Zoey's visits to the White House without being able to touch her and hold her and just talk to her. But even if it never happened and there was no way back for them, he guessed he was still better off than some people, who knew what they wanted and were within reach of it every day, but went year after year never, ever being able to have it.

He glanced over at Danny and found the reporter looking pensive even as he bantered, and wondered if maybe it was just something that happened in the White House. But tonight was Inauguration Night, a special night, and maybe for a little while things could be different. Josh and Donna could dance together and pretend they were just celebrating a hard-fought victory, pretend that they were just a little tipsier than they actually were. Maybe Danny would find CJ and distract her from whatever had her looking so nervous and tense lately, at least long enough for a drink and a turn around the floor. Maybe he would find Zoey and tell her that, no matter what else had happened between them, he wasn't scared anymore, and he still loved her. The eight balls tonight were a celebration, but they were also the moment of transition between the old and the new, a moment of time between four years of hard fights done and four years left to change the world. Maybe this moment between was the only time any of them would have, but maybe it would be enough. He'd drink a toast to that.


End file.
